When Gamov met Rachel
by Synthesis
Summary: Ever wondered what Gamov meant when he told Ryu not to worry about Rachel? A short fic for your fancy, I think it came out OK.


**Ninja Gaiden: When Gamov met Rachel**

_"Oh, and don't worry about Rachel! I know her...she can take care of herself."_

"You want to know the truth? I have the greatest job in the world."

In his office overlooking eastern Tairon, a Special Agent of Internal Affairs was extremely pleased with himself. This was typically the case—those who had met him knew the Special Agent to be almost completely content with his existence.

The one thing that bothered him, though, was the fact that those gaudy floodlights from Han's Bar, on Pleasure Street, ruined his otherwise scenic view of the Imperial Capital of the Holy Vigoorian Empire.

"Even then, I can't just go and order them to turn off those lights."

He enjoyed talking to himself. Not many people seemed to like his company. He came off as strange, aloof, and overconfident, probably a result of his line of work. His appearance did not help either: a green overcoat, round, opaque glasses hiding his eyes, and even when he was indoors, a green hat. It was a trademark appearance that was unmistakable—he was Gamov, and no one could think otherwise.

He shifted his chair around, and returned to his desk. His office, like everything else in Tairon, was a strange mixture of Arabic, European, and Chinese architecture. Several swords, none of which Gamov had the strength or interest to use, hung on the walls, and a few ancient muskets and bolt-action rifles hung on a rack, all purely ornamental. The only weapons Gamov had, or could use, were a semi-automatic handgun he kept stashed in his drawer, and a small Walther PPK, which he kept in a holster underneath his belt. Gamov liked the PPK for two reasons: first, it was light, and unobtrusive, second, it was the same gun the famous cinematic secret agent James Bond used, and Gamov liked to think of himself as a James Bond of sorts. After all—he might have been Special Agent Gamov of Internal Affairs, a pivotal figure in Vigoorian intelligence network, but to many, he was simply Master Gamov, a wealthy if eccentric collector of various things, old and new, who lived in a very nice apartment in Tairon.

"Sooner or later, I'll think of some way to convince Han to remove those damned lights." Gamov did not dislike the Tairon's architecture, not in the least, and accepted it as the result of the nation being centered between Europe, the Middle East, and China. But those floodlights from Han's Bar stuck out like sore thumbs.

Gamov was not particularly fond of Pleasure Street either. It was well-known as Tairon's red-light district, even though Han's Club was supposedly quite selective about its clientele. Prostitution, alcohol-trafficking, and other acts that were formally forbidden by the laws of the Empire all flourished there, and the local police could not be expected to combat it—Han's Club acted as the area's guardian, forcing the police and law-abiding citizens into apathy, either with bribes or force. It probably didn't help that Han's Club housed the rival branch of the Vigoorian intelligence network, known as the Special Security Operations Corps, or SSOC, Gamov's archrivals. The SSOC had no uniforms, unlike the Internal Affairs agents, and they were mostly unobtrusive men and women who wandered about, calling themselves the 'Underground', as though they were going to overthrow the monarchy.

"If we could just send the Army in...or a few MSAT divisions...we could wipe that scum-hole from the face of the Earth," he mumbled to himself. But, that was a folly, he knew. The Imperial Armed Forces, and the MSAT—Mechanized Special Attack Team—Troops were not about to be sent anywhere in large numbers without a direct order from either the Holy Vigoorian Emperor or the Imperial Parliament, neither of which seemed to care very much about the situation. They believed that the rivalry between Internal Affairs and SSOC kept the intelligence network efficient and competitive. Only in the case of an emergency could Internal Affairs, being the senior intelligence agency, send troops on its own.

Gamov sat back in his chair and sighed. He did not hold the new Holy Vigoorian Emperor in very high regard. Xtianius III, the recently installed monarch, was not Emperor-material. In Gamov's opinion, the nineteen-year old youth was an effeminate and weak child, perhaps a good spokesperson for a high school theatre troupe, but poorly-suited to be Emperor. He had good intentions, Gamov gave him that, but the only reason Parliament had named him Emperor was that his older brother, the heir-apparent, had died in Military Service in the countryside. Rumor had it that he had gotten into a petty fight with an adolescent _kunochi_, or female ninja, with brown hair and a blue outfit, and had been torn to shreds. Again, it was all rumors, but it was possible. Large tribes of active shinobi resided in the mountainous east. Neither the Army nor the MSAT Troops dared venture into the area. The shinobi had bad reputations for decapitating their enemies with their swords. A division of headless soldiers would anger the Emperor and the public.

Gamov thoughts were interrupted when the antique phone on his desk rang. He allowed it to ring twice, then picked up the receiver.

"What is it?" The voice on the other hand squawked out in panic, and Gamov's weathered eyes grew larger. Even before the other speaker finished, he slammed the receiver down and quickly stormed out of his office, his hat in his hands.

_Another calamity is upon us…wonderful._

She watched, calmly, as the red monster reached forward, grabbed a man by his torso, and ripped him to shreds.

_Poor bastard. Serves him right, though...can't get too close._

This man, who now lay in multiple bloody pieces, had been a member of the so-called Black Spider Clan, a group of 'urbanized' ninjas that seem to crawl about the city, committing the occasional robbery or murder. From what she had heard, they paled in comparison to the ninjas living outside the city, the _shinobi_. The fact that this one hadn't been smart enough to save his life seemed to prove what she had heard.

"Quick! Surround him!"

"Forget it! Let's get out of here!"

"No, wait, Seku, watch out!"

From the relative safety of the balcony, the large, voluptuous blond woman winced as another ninja was turned into a large red spot on the ground.

_Stupid_. She opened her eyes to watch what would become of the two remaining ninjas. The red devil, the size of a small vehicle and with massive horns, crouched over and prepared to charge one of them. More intelligent then his companions, he quickly leapt out of the way, just barely in time.

His friend was not as smart. The devil swung his tail at him and knocked him to the ground. As the ninja reached for his katana, the thing took a large bite of his head, and crushed the rest with his foot.

_Looks like they won't be here much longer_… The devil had killed four of the five ninjas with little difficulty. Realizing his death was upon him, he decided, perhaps in desperation, perhaps in idiocy, to take the offensive, bringing his katana down on the beast's head as it sniffed at one of the ninja-stains on the street. The katana came down true, only to bounce of the creature's thick hide. Underneath his mask, the blond woman imagined the ninja's eye growing to the size of saucers as the beast impaled him on one of his horns.

_Well, that's the last of them. Nice work, losers, I think you pissed him off._ She tilted her neck sharply from side to side, resulting in a loud popping noise, and reached to the balcony floor, producing her weapon: a long, massive, and extremely heavy scythe. The War Hammer, it was called.

She raised her free arm, aimed her wrist at a column above and behind the beast, and was about to fire a small harpoon from the contraption mounted on her forearm, when she heard gunshots.

_What the hell?_ She looked down, and much to her surprise, a single man, in an olive-green overcoat and a matching hat, stood down the street, firing a small gun at the creature. _Great, more idiots. Tairon must be full of them._

What particularly irritated her was that now she was going to have to save his ugly coat-wearing ass. As bullets ricocheted off its hide, the creature turned to him, and prepared to charge.

On the ground, Special Agent Gamov of the Internal Affair's Bureau stood his ground at the opposite end of the street, though his dark face had become strangely pale. He kept firing until the small handgun clicked empty, and rather than attempt to reload it, he simply stared at the red devil as it began to charge at him.

Perhaps as a result of his life flashing before his eyes, Gamov failed to see as the voluptuous blond woman fired her harpoon at the building behind him, and came swooping down, in the style of an old 'Tarzan' movie. Twisting her wrist, she brought her War Hammer down and across the beast's neck, and with a blood-curdling slash, ripped through.

A wave of thick red blood washed over Gamov as the beast's head separated from its body, spun into the air, and came crashing down not far from his feet. The body quickly collapsed on its knees and stopped before him, blood spreading across the street like high tide. When Gamov finally opened his eyes and lowered his arms from his face, he looked at the devil's corpse, a headless pile the size of a moose on steriods, and took a sigh of relief.

Behind him, he heard a high-heeled shoes strike the ground, and turned to see the voluptuous blond woman, dressed in a revealing black leather outfit of a more exotic style, holding a bloody weapon. He cocked an eyebrow at her, and removed his hat from his head, trying to wrap his mind around his head.

"…you did this, didn't you?" he finally asked.

The blond woman nodded, as she scrapped the blade of her massive weapon against the wall, as though she were trying to remove some of the blood. When that failed, she rested it against her shoulder and slowly began to walk away, through the giant pool of red.

"...wait!" Gamov cried, following her. "How did you do this? You're not from here, are you?"

She turned to him. Gamov appeared to be at least twice her age, and with his green coat spattered in blood, he was not an impressive sight. She actually had been born in the Holy Vigoorian Empire, though her parents had immigrated from the West. She turned away and continued walking.

"Hey! Hold on! You were able to kill a fiend!" He came to a stop at the corpse.

"At least, tell me your name..."

The beautiful woman turned to him.

"Rachel."

Before he could respond, she turned around, fired another harpoon at a distant building, and reeled herself away, into the darkness. Gamov stood by himself, and sighed, returning his hat to his head, pulling the brim down.

"Uh, sir?"

Gamov slowly turned, his spectacles flashing. From the end of the street where he had been standing, two MSAT soldiers, clad in black body armor, emerged from the darkness of a small alley into the streetlight. Both wielded long RPG-7s, special anti-tank weapons imported from the former-Soviet Union, one of the Vigoorian Empire's old trading partners. One of the rocket-propelled grenades should have been sufficient to blast a hole in the beast's thick, armor-like hide.

"We apologize for..."

Gamov smirked. "Don't bother. So, the ambush didn't work. Not a big deal. She did all the work, after all."

The first MSAT nodded. "Who was that, anyway?"

Gamov turned to the direction where she had vanished. "I don't know, but I will tell you one thing."

He returned his Walther PPK into its holster, and chuckled.

"...that's one hell of a woman."

**Author's Notes:**

My attempt to make a decent Ninja Gaiden story, funny considering that I haven't even made an actual Dead or Alive fanfic yet. I'll have to get around to that, eventually. Did you pick up on the Kasumi reference?

God, I had to edit this thing three times to get out most of the bugs.


End file.
